Donny’s Late TOS Movie Era Interiors
- Thread starter Donny
- Start date
I’m gonna admit it’s a little stressful! Having to answer to someone with first hand knowledge. But yes. I still can’t believe I’m building a working relationship with the man.
Hey Donny, how is the lighting done in Unreal, is it an accurate physical simulation or can you mess around with the physics of light falloff? The reason I ask is, looking at your images compared to screencaps, yours seems to have more smooth falloffs from bright to dark areas. Like the spot reflections on the floor. Overall the screencaps just have a darker and harsher contrast of light levels, and yours is more even. Maybe it's just a factor of the ambient light being brighter compared to the highlights?
I haven’t done a final lighting pass yet. But I’m using a combination of emissive materials that inject light into the scene and hand-placed spotlights that have falloff. Between the many lights above the consoles, the canned lights along the perimeter of the ceiling structure, the braces, the light strips below the consoles, and anything else, this scene has a ton of lights in it. It’s hard to tweak each individual element in real time, since until Unreal 5 is officially out of early access, I have to rely on lengthy lighting builds to see what any changes I make to lighting have.
But like I said, I haven’t done the final pass yet and once all the remaining elements are in I will endeavor to get as close to reference as I can.
Fantastic seeing the helm console and all the detail that was included on it. Aside from the infamous sound-mixer controls I never knew how much diversity there was!The helm is now complete. What a beast of details to figure out!
I spoke to Mike Okuda yesterday and he informed me that the spheres on the console were two concentric clear styrene half-domes, one smaller and fitting inside the other. He said he "most likely" used 1/4" and 1/8" silver mylar tape to form a cross pattern on the inner dome, with some black and white on the lower edge of the outer dome. I took my best stab at it, not really ever getting a good look at them in the film, and I think the results look well enough.
Another thing I was always curious about was what kind of graphics were in the center panel's 6 cut-outs. This morning I sent a message to ask him. And while waiting for a response, I had an "aha!" moment and figured they were most likely small versions of the circular displays seen elswhere on the bridge. He later got in touch with me and confirmed that was indeed what was there. He then commented that the glass discs sitting on top of them should have more highlight and haze, so I therefore made them very shiny. He also commented that those grey panels had more weathering and a spattery paint finish, and that the helm console control surfaces were more glossy, so I again changed things to suit. It's a real treat having Mike Okuda give my work a once-over, but it's also terrifying knowing what he might say that might require more work on my end
A captain's eye view:
Now that I have the drum machine controls modeled, it's easy to populate them elsewhere. Here they are on the Science and Communication stations' console extensions:
The graphics on these extensions were not backlit, but were screen-printed onto the panels themselves, a look I've maintained here.
The graphics on these extensions were not backlit, but were screen-printed onto the panels themselves, a look I've maintained here.
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Seeing all these detail shots has me curious to see a version of the TUC bridge in the color scheme from TFF. I’ve always thought adding the tactile control surfaces and additional greebles throughout the brighter colored set would make a perfect combination.
I do plan on experimenting with that at some point in the near future. I will probably do what you suggest as a non-canonical bridge of some sort.
Maybe it would work as a TFF Excelsior bridge?
I always thought the back end of the new astrogator looks like it would get in the Captain's way, or be a trip hazard! (Unless Kirk had in put in so he could stretch his legs out, and put his feet up on it)
Nah. I’m gonna do a canon TUC Excelsior bridge as soon as I finish the A, but after that I’ll be exploring non-canon stuff like an era-appropriate Miranda bridges, one or two more Connie bridges, and an Akyazi bridge design I’ve been toying around with in my brain.
Looking forward to your up coming projects 
Tying up all the loose ends before I can call the TUC Ent-A bridge finished. Knocked out the little black intercom speakers and fire extinguishers that were seen in the turbolift alcoves (and throughout the rest of the ship)
I've got the dedication plaque and about 5 or so animated monitor screens left to generate, which will probably take a few more days.
I've got the dedication plaque and about 5 or so animated monitor screens left to generate, which will probably take a few more days.
Love it as always. The depth of field blurring makes it look like the "photographer" is really liking that extinguisher ! ;-)
Well, exploding consoles....
Plus didn't we see actual fire extinguishers in use in the VOY pilot episode? In the burning Sickbay scene where Harry has the oven mitts
EDIT: Yep!
https://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=2&page=15
https://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x01a/caretaker_0354.jpg
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